Football RecruitingMore juco impact is on the way

East Carolina continues to tap the junior college ranks for performers that can have an immediate impact next season. Northeast Mississippi Community college defensive end and former South Carolina recruit Blake McClain is the fifth junior college star to make a pledge to join ECU’s recruiting class of 2017.

An aggressive tackler and pursuer of quarterbacks, the 6-4, 280-pound McClain was courted by Florida State and Nebraska as a Florida prep star before signing with South Carolina. He redshirted for the Gamecocks and eventually wound up spending this season as an anchor of Coach Greg Davis’s Northeast Tigers defense.